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Topic: WoF factions (Read 19033 times)

Spycraft being reprinted and World on Fire finally being printed has renewed my desire to run a Spycraft game.

I'm still undecided though about the books I'm gonna use (I own every previous ones) and especially if I'm gonna use the World in Fire factions or Archer's or Dark Inheritance's (or go for the hat trick grand slam, the world really is complicated, using all three at various degrees).

However I'm not very well informed about the World in Fire factions (I only remember some of the names from the CCG adds back then) and I'd really need some info as we'll first discuss this campaign next weekend. Can somebody point me to a description of them or describe them to me. I'd need name, known goals, style, just enough that I can quickly explain them to my players before reading the full story in the book.

It should be noted that The Franchise and Project: Pitfall are VILLIANS and thus not suitable for players.

So...the "secretive terrorist network" and the "elite counter-terrorist task force", who presumably are at odds with each other, are both villains? Huh.

Speaking of which, how well do the various faction get along? I just know if I ran this game for my group that I would see my players make 1 Banshee Net character, 1 Bloodvine Syndicate character, 1 Krypt character, 1 Nine Tiger Dynasty character, 1 Paradox Society character, 1 Shadow Patriots character, 1 Frachise character, and 1 Project: Pitfall character.

I could also see the world being subsequently destroyed as the WMDs spread and they can't keep from bickering.

So...the "secretive terrorist network" and the "elite counter-terrorist task force", who presumably are at odds with each other, are both villains? Huh.

There is nothing wrong with it, the terrorists are the BAD guys who want to destroy the GOOD heroes, whereas Project: Pitfall is a group of GOOD guys who have all their facts wrong and hunt the GOOD heroes down because they (Heroes) are vigilantes.

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Speaking of which, how well do the various faction get along? I just know if I ran this game for my group that I would see my players make 1 Banshee Net character, 1 Bloodvine Syndicate character, 1 Krypt character, 1 Nine Tiger Dynasty character, 1 Paradox Society character, 1 Shadow Patriots character, 1 Frachise character, and 1 Project: Pitfall character.

Wow, it's like blending booze with beer and adding pure alc to spice it up a bit.

Speaking of which, how well do the various faction get along? I just know if I ran this game for my group that I would see my players make 1 Banshee Net character, 1 Bloodvine Syndicate character, 1 Krypt character, 1 Nine Tiger Dynasty character, 1 Paradox Society character, 1 Shadow Patriots character, 1 Frachise character, and 1 Project: Pitfall character.

Play much L5R? It's like making a party with one person from every clan. Scorpion and Lion are good friends, right?

So...the "secretive terrorist network" and the "elite counter-terrorist task force", who presumably are at odds with each other, are both villains? Huh.

There is nothing wrong with it, the terrorists are the BAD guys who want to destroy the GOOD heroes, whereas Project: Pitfall is a group of GOOD guys who have all their facts wrong and hunt the GOOD heroes down because they (Heroes) are vigilantes.

So it's more accurate to say The Franchise are villians, and Project: Pitfall are antagonists/rivals? Sorta like Koichi Zenigata or Claud Eustace Teal? Albeit probably with less congeniality and more machine gun fire.

« Last Edit: September 27, 2007, 01:06:31 PM by Krensky »

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Banshee Net are terrorists. They unleashed the Mouthwash Confessional and storred a LOT of shit up. Pitfall is trying to stop this 'bad guys.'

You don't play Pitfall in the CCG. They run down your ass (though I think BN had a few plants in there). I guess you could say they're misguided, but they're much more interesting as a threat then as a player faction.

The Franchise, on the other hand, is kinda like SPECTRE. Evil. Professional evil. The make horrible plagues and unleash them to try to end the world. It's just what they do.

Speaking of which, how well do the various faction get along? I just know if I ran this game for my group that I would see my players make 1 Banshee Net character, 1 Bloodvine Syndicate character, 1 Krypt character, 1 Nine Tiger Dynasty character, 1 Paradox Society character, 1 Shadow Patriots character, 1 Frachise character, and 1 Project: Pitfall character.

Play much L5R? It's like making a party with one person from every clan. Scorpion and Lion are good friends, right?

This is precisely what happened when I played L5R before. We managed to pull it off because there was an imperial decree that basically forced them to work together. It was the Emerald Champion's project designed to ultimately fight the Kolat. He brought the best and brightest young samurai (those who just passed their gempukku) from across Rokugan and put them together to work as Imperial Magistrates. He hoped that these newly named, and hopefully impressionable, samurai could learn to look past the clan differences and work together for the betterment of the Empire. In so doing, he hoped that they would become an organized force capable of traveling the length and breadth of Rokugan. The Kolat did not respect political boundaries, so he needed a unit that could bypass them as well.

But, I don't see an emperor in WoF, at least, not an emperor that everyone worships.

I'm sorry, what? Terrorists, you say? Now, I never really played the CCG, so there may be some background I'm missing, but simply leaking confidential information does not make one a terrorist. Anti-establishment? Possibly. Criminal? Probably. But a terrorist? Where's the terror? Where's the direct action against civilians? Was Deepthroat a terrorist? How about your typical corporate whistle-blower?

I apologize if I come off a little forceful, but I take great issue with the ever-expanding meaning of the word "terrorist".

If you've never played the CCG then there's a LOT of background you're missing. Chaos bombers, dirty tactics. Automated Genuis is aiming to take down "the System." They're anarchists not in the sense that they are teen rebels, but dedicated techno-savvy individuals that are out to end the government.

They aren't EVIL like Franchise, but that doesn't mean they are GOOD either. Catch me?

If you've never played the CCG then there's a LOT of background you're missing. Chaos bombers, dirty tactics. Automated Genuis is aiming to take down "the System." They're anarchists not in the sense that they are teen rebels, but dedicated techno-savvy individuals that are out to end the government.

They aren't EVIL like Franchise, but that doesn't mean they are GOOD either. Catch me?

IMHO bears mentioning by Pifall's standards every other faction is a terrorist Org. Hell, by real world definitions, splintered as they are, that's the case.Everything below is probably mildly incorrect but it's the best I can recall with the effort I'm allocating.

Banshee Netters are idealists. They work to create a world of unrestricted data travel in which freedom is the standard everyone lives by. They're much more about using the facade of the status quo to protect their interests and blackmail/coercion to produce results. Not that they can't get bloody, but it's really not BN style. They created and released the Mouthwash Confessional, and are essentially responsible for the WoF climate of fear and paranoia as the power structures rocked by Confessional backlashed spectacularily.The archetypal Banshee Net agent is brilliant, controlled, and utterly on top of a situation he saw 10 moves ago.

Allies: The Shadow Patriots, The Krypt.

Comparitively the Nine Tigers Dynasty is the physical expression of it's founder's faith in the prophecy of the 9th Dynasty. That a perfect warrior will rise to lead it to power, and though that prophetized warrior came as a pair of precocious jet-setting rave bunnies who also happen to be, precisely speaking, totally unstoppable in skirmish combat is hardly an obstacle to that.9TD loves combat, and are balls out the single deadliest faction. That they're into archaic forms tends to mean little in the small-scale warfare of the spy. The 9T Khan (who's name totally escapes me) plans to ride his the destined greatness of his daughters into a new Chinese era of world supremacy (though for my money I'm curious just how well they'd stand up in actual battlefield combat) and has been stockpiling WMD of all kinds towards that end.The archetypal Nine Tigers agent is ruthless, agile, and supremely dominant in hard-to-hand combat.

Allies: None. The 9TD are quite off the radar compared to the Banshee Net, and are quite happy to keep it that way until it's quite too late.

The Shadow Patriots are the struggling remains of a very unofficial Soviet and NATO join power control conspiracy. As the Cold War commenced spies on both sides of the Iron Curtain realized the advent of nuclear arms had created a potential for annihilation unrivaled in human history. Their greatest mutual fear wasn't that World War Three would indeed be 45 seconds long, but that the same deranged megalomaniacs who'd threatened the world for all it's history before would as well have a similar boost in disastrous potential. Thus a pact was formed in the greatest caution and secrecy: protect the world, no matter the time, place, or cost.The Mouthwash Confessional would prove their undoing, cost them patronage by the British Crown and causing a schismatic rift that created the Krypt.Driven by their quixotic quest to defend the world that calls for their extinction, the Shadow Patriots keep the lamp lit to the last breath. The archetypal Shadow Patriots agent is the walking avatar of omnicompetance, prepared mentally and physically for any arena of conflict or challenge, regardless of the stakes. Never tell a Shadow Patriot "failure's not an option." They know that; it never was.